


Necessity and Need

by Natarie



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 04:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6690511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natarie/pseuds/Natarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah wakes up in the Labyrinth the day after she saves Toby. And the morning after that, and the next. Slow burn friendship-to-romance fic (if it ever gets that far)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Necessity and Need

**Author's Note:**

> All the labyfics I’ve read have Sarah grown up, matured and changed away from Jareth before they meet again. That's a good formula for any number of reasons, but I wanted to find out what would happen if Sarah just… never left.
> 
> Standard Disclaimer: Paltry editing skills and, like most things I write, this has been on my hard drive for years—five in this case—which considering how slow I am means it might be a forever-wip.  
>  _Unlike_ most things I write this work has actual "chapter" divisions and the first bit was almost done so I thought maybe someone else might laugh at my weird humor.
> 
> Also, pop culture and technology anachronisms because _funny_.
> 
> Cross-post with [ff.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11920256/1/Necessity-and-Need)

The sun had nearly risen when Sarah’s friends slipped through her mirror into the Underground. There was confetti, streamers, crumpled paper hats and, inexplicably, glitter everywhere. Sarah made a face, ran a hand through her hair, and realized she was still wearing her paper party hat. Irene and her dad wouldn’t come in her room, so rather than clean up, Sarah spent a few seconds brushing debris off her bed before changing into her pajamas and slipping under the covers.

She awoke to the most delicious feeling of contentment.

For a moment she stretched, luxuriating in the feel of clean sheets against her skin and the warmth of the little cocoon she’d made of the comforter. It was a Saturday, which meant she had the time to roll over, curl back into the covers, and sleep until dinner if she chose.

Sarah rubbed her face against the soft sheets and stretched again. She didn’t feel like sleeping in. She felt like getting out of bed and checking that nothing had happened to Toby while she slept. She’d won him back, but wanted to check, just in case. Sarah sighed, rolled over one more time, and opened her eyes.

And stared.

She was in a massive four-poster bed, so big that she could have laid two of her across its length and still wouldn’t reach the sides. The curtains were drawn back, revealing a room patterned in rich tapestries. The walls and floors were made of rough stonework that looked vaguely familiar.

There were footsteps from the other side of the room, muted by the thick rug.

Sarah looked up and blinked, not sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing. Hastily, she scrubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked again.

The Goblin King was standing in the doorway on the other side of the room. He had one hand fisted protectively in the towel wrapped around his waist. Apparently he had just come from his morning toilet. He did not appear happy.

For a moment they just stared at each other in shock. Sarah was struggling through a problem in her mind. She could have sworn when she first looked up that Jareth... wasn’t wearing anything.

Before Sarah could process the thought, Jareth narrowed his eyes at her and waved a hand. She was suddenly back in her own bed.

As if in a dream, she got up, opened the door, and glanced down the hallway. She could hear the sound of the TV coming from downstairs. Confused, she went to the bathroom to wash up. By the time she’d finished brushing her teeth she’d almost convinced herself the whole thing had never happened.

The rest of her day passed uneventfully. Sarah firmly decided that she’d dreamed the whole thing. She experienced a brief flicker of unease when she slipped into bed that night, but convinced herself not to worry, that it wouldn’t happen again.

 

* * *

 

Sunday morning Sarah woke up in the Goblin King’s study.

She was sitting in a chair on the other side of his desk, the wood of the armrests smooth under her hands.

Jareth paused in the middle of writing something, looked up at her, and put his quill down with a sigh. For a moment they weren’t recent adversaries reunited. They were just two confused people experiencing a mutual dissatisfaction with reality through the dawning sense that there was nothing they could do about it.

“Well, Sarah,” Jareth said after a significant pause, “do you need something?”

“I don’t need anything,” Sarah said automatically. Then, given a few more seconds of thought, she decided that she should be a bit more hostile towards her former enemy, just in case this was some kind of trick.

“What am I doing here?”

“You tell me.” Jareth smiled a slow, dangerous smile that revealed all of his teeth. “I have absolutely no idea why you felt it necessary to return after winning back your brother. Surely, there is nothing more I can give you. I have already been quite… generous.”

Sarah pressed against the back of her chair at the subtle menace in his voice. Then, realizing what he was doing, she scowled and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’m not the one with magic,” she snorted, “therefore it _must_ have been you.”

“Oh it ‘must,’ mustn’t it?” Jareth mocked. “Silly girl. Did it never occur to you that there might be consequences for your actions?”

His words stung, and Sarah flinched.

“I ran your maze and I won! I got Toby back. I don’t have anything to do with you anymore!”

A flicker of something flashed through Jareth’s eyes, but it was gone before she could identify it. His face clenched and he scowled at her, all pretense at civility lost.

“Enough! I will not be trifled with.”

And Sarah was sitting up in bed, glaring at her room.

 

* * *

 

That night she very nearly didn’t go to bed. She washed up, put her pajamas on, and spent an hour staring at her bed from the relative safety of her desk chair.

But in the end, the deciding factor was that she had school the next day. Wearily she got into bed. If she had to face the Goblin King on waking every day, she at least wanted to be well rested for the confrontation.

If one could count watching the Goblin King take a large bite of toast and nearly choke on it in surprise a “confrontation.” Their meetings were taking place in some tame places, at least compared to their final showdown at the center of the Labyrinth in the remains of the Escher room. First his bedroom, then his study, and now his bedroom again. At least he was clothed this time.

While Jareth coughed into a gloved fist, Sarah took the opportunity to look around his bedroom.

It was surprisingly… colorful. If asked, Sarah would have guessed his tastes to be more like a horror-story vampire in a dark crypt with lots of red accents.

The natural golden-brown stonework of the labyrinth was contrasted against dark, intricately carved wooden furniture. The curtains on his bed and at the windows were a creamy white, but looked fuzzy as if they were made of feathers. The bed covers were a neutral beige, but there was a blanket falling from the foot of the bed that was a deep, midnight blue. It seemed almost to sparkle, as if the velvet was catching the light, or had been woven with tiny stars.

The covers were in a jumbled heap, proof that Jareth had yet to make the bed. It made everything seem somehow intimate and Sarah glanced away, embarrassed, to look at the tapestries on the walls. They were vividly colorful, even from where she sat, and warranted a closer look, just like the thick arabesque carpet beneath her feet.

Jareth sucked in a deep breath of air and Sarah raised an eyebrow, deciding that for once _she_ would be generous.

“You ok?”

He looked at her, measured her face and tone of voice, and nodded. In one assessing glance they both agreed to forgo the animosity of the day before and pretend that this was a normal, if not welcome, occurrence.

“How lovely to see you again, Sarah.” She chose to ignore the slight hint of mockery. “I saved you a chair.”

Sarah realized suddenly that there was a place setting in front of her on the table. It seemed unlikely that Jareth invited company over for breakfast. She wondered if she would have found herself on the floor this morning if he hadn’t been expecting her.

“Please, help yourself. Juice?” He proffered a silver ewer.

The recent memory of a drugged peach flashed into her mind and Sarah’s stomach heaved.

“No, thanks,” she said quickly, “I’ve got school this morning and I should probably go—“ and found herself sitting, once again, in her own bed.

 

* * *

 

Every morning for a week Sarah woke up and made nice with the Goblin King. They fell into rhythm, with Sarah usually appearing on the other side of his desk or across from him at his breakfast table. She did not wake up in his bed again, and once she even ventured a bite of toast.

When Sarah was by herself, back in the safety of her own bed, her own room, and her own world, she laughed at the awkwardness of it all. The Goblin King and the girl who defeated him, sharing brief moments together before she returned to the real world.

By mutual agreement, they didn’t bring up any of the issues between them. Jareth didn’t stop his biting mockery or his sarcasm, but what had happened was glossed over, hidden beneath the layers of pretend necessary to keep their morning exchange civil.

At first it chafed Sarah. Every time he looked at her under his lashes, deliberately reminded her of her foolishness and her selfish nature, Sarah wanted to yell at him. She wanted to remind him that _he_ was the villain, and that she had won, that their story was over and he could go to hell for all she cared.

But the truth was that their story wasn’t over. For some reason, their story had chosen not to end when they’d expected it to, and so they sat morning after morning, caught in an act where they pretended they didn’t loathe each other’s guts simply because shouting at each other every day would have been even worse.

On Friday night, the one-week anniversary of Sarah’s defeat of the Labyrinth, she ventured to ask Jareth why this was happening and if he could fix it.

“Dearest Sarah,” he’d sighed with dramatic flair, “I have done nothing _but_ research our mutual predicament this past week.”

“And?”

“And I am no wiser as to why every day I’m besieged by your presence!”

Sarah had found that a bit rich. After all, he wasn’t the one who appeared in _her_ bedroom every day wearing pink pajamas with rainbow unicorns patterned all over them.

“But you’re the one with magic—“ she’d begun, only to be interrupted.

“ _Magic_ , little girl, doesn’t let me do everything I please. I may be able to send you back every morning before you further inconvenience my day, but I’m no closer to figuring out _why_ you appear in the first place.

“Rest assured, Sarah,” he bared his teeth in a smile, “the day I discover how to end your coming here is the day I never see you again!”

At the end of his tirade, Jareth had looked ready to murder her in her sleep rather than have her wake up one more day in his castle. Sarah let the matter drop.

Another week passed, not much different than the last. By then, neither of them expected anything to change, and were forced to cope the only way they knew how.

Sarah got over her fear of Jareth’s food and helped herself to free breakfast. Irene only cooked breakfast on the weekend, and Sarah didn’t have the time to make herself eggs every morning. Jareth stopped being so snippy. She wasn’t sure if it was the annoyance at being bested and forced to see his victor every day, or it was just his nature to be bad-tempered, but by week two Jareth seemed too tired to bother being purposely disagreeable anymore.

In fact, week two marked a turning point. They both still hated each other, but they didn’t pretend to hide it. That had gotten old fast. Instead, they settled into blandness so complete it would have forced plain yogurt to leave the room in embarrassment.

Their five minutes of conversation every morning amounted to the equivalent of “’How was your day yesterday?’ ‘Fine.’ ‘Good.’ ‘And you?’ “Adequate.’ ‘Good.’”

Sarah wasn’t sure she didn’t want to go back to the yelling.

 

* * *

 

If she needed anyone to complain to, her friends were always there to listen.

The first time she confessed that she’d been waking up to hang out with the Goblin King, they’d been horrified for various reasons.

Hoggle, of course, was worried that Jareth was bewitching her for some evil and nefarious purpose. Sarah had thought that for maybe the first… day, but Jareth’s obvious annoyance at having her around was too genuine. Off the top of her head, she couldn’t think of any diabolical plans that involved having one’s arch-nemesis appear every day to be irritating and/or eat breakfast.

King or not, Sir Didymus had been ready to challenge Jareth for her honor on hearing that Sarah frequently woke up in his bedroom. It took ten minutes to convince Didymus there was nothing suggestive about waking up in a chair on the other side of a table to the sight of a fully dressed man eating breakfast. She didn’t mention the first day when she had woken in Jareth’s bed and seen him naked, and she never planned to.

Of the three, Ludo was the most practical. Her large furry friend was anxious she wasn’t getting enough sleep, that her sleepwalking into the Underground was affecting her health and was bad for her. Sarah was touched at the concern, but didn’t see the need for worry. If nothing else, visiting Jareth every day _encouraged_ her to get enough sleep. Sarah could only imagine what it would be like to meet the Goblin King at less than full mental capacity.

What was really tiring, she told her friends one day, was that she had to see Jareth at all.

“It’s just so obnoxious!”

Sarah sighed and slumped forward, propping her face up with one hand.

“I’ve got homework and school to worry about. He’s got… Goblin King things. Neither of us _want_ to see each other.”

“It must be that Jareth’s fault,” Hoggle grumbled for the fifth time. “He did something when you won, some trickery that makes it so you’re tied to him.”

“Nay, Friend Hoggle, the King might employ questionable methods at times but he is no fiend, to torture a young girl like the Lady Sarah as you seem to believe.”

Hoggle scoffed loudly and looked away. “He’s fooling you, Didymus. How do you know what Jareth’s really like?”

Sir Didymus’s whiskers bristled in indignation. Sarah rolled her eyes, having already heard this argument. While she privately agreed with Hoggle that Jareth was an unscrupulous asshole, she’d gotten over believing that the world revolved around her. Jareth was an unscrupulous asshole to everyone. She was only special because he had a grudge. Well, he wasn’t the only one.

“As a loyal knight of His Majesty’s realm,” Sir Didymus was saying, “I refuse to hear such slander against our King, even from the lips of a friend. To question His Majesty’s judgment is to question my loyalties in following him.”

In short, these were fighting words and this was the point Sarah stepped in to separate them.

“Guys—“ Sarah held out her hands placatingly, trying to take the edge off. If she didn’t stop them Ludo would, but she’d rather Didymus didn’t whip out his sword first.

“Didymus right,” Ludo rumbled, and the conflict halted.

“King not bad. Not nice always, but goblins need king. Without king goblins worse.”

“You say that,” Sarah tried to reason, “but when we first met the goblins were trying to hurt you! They chased us around the city because he _told_ them to.”

“King not tell goblins attack Ludo,” her shaggy friend stubbornly insisted.

“My Lady, we _did_ storm His Majesty’s city and destroy the gate guardian. The goblins have a duty to protect the realm. Though they are not as chivalrous as myself, you understand.”

Sarah could feel her cheeks getting red and bit her lower lip.

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t _cheat_ . He _drugged me_ , remember? And he was terrible to Hoggle.”

“If friend Hoggle didn’t insist on disrespecting His Majesty—” Didymus began with a strong frown of disapproval.

“Jareth deserves like he got! That rat always acting so big just because he’s king.”

“Guys,” Sarah sighed, about to reach in the mirror and separate them herself. This conversation was going nowhere and it wasn’t making her feel any better either.

“FIGHTING BAD.”

Ludo growled suddenly and Sarah found herself diving to save various knick-knacks when her vanity shook. Downstairs, she could hear Irene calling for her to stop crashing around.

Her largest friend held a very surprised Sir Didymus and Hoggle dangling in mid-air from his furry paws.

“Sarah too. No fighting with king.”

About to tell Ludo that Jareth _started_ it, Sarah bit back her angry retort, realizing she was going to sound like a spoiled brat. The spoiled brat Jareth had accused her of being and still implied that she was.

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Ludo was right.

Having snippy pseudo-civil conversations with Jareth because she refused to let his comments go only made her look bad. He’d obviously had ages to practice being a sarcastic adult. Her paltry attempts just made her look juvenile.

“He’s my enemy,” Sarah insisted, feeling angry and useless. “And he’s _impossible_.”

“Thy brother is safe at home, My Lady. The game is finished much to thy credit. Is it not time to put the past away?”

Sarah was about to retort, somewhat childishly, that “the past” was really only a few weeks past, when there was a loud _thump_ immediately followed by crying and the sound of hurried footsteps on the stairs.

She realized that she was half out of her chair ready to go get her brother, and sank back into her seat with a sigh. Didymus had a point. Toby was home safe, and despite all her protectiveness, she didn’t think Jareth was _that_ much of a sore loser to steal her brother again so soon after the first time.

Plus, how awkward would it be the next morning when Sarah woke up at his breakfast table to find him playing with her baby brother?

Sarah sighed again, pushing some errant strands of hair behind her ears.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Perhaps,” Sir Didymus said, “thou might try approaching the King as an equal, not a former adversary. His Majesty is the villain of this tale no longer.”

“But—“ Sarah bit off the rest of her words, staring angrily at her clenched hands. “But what do I _do_?”

“Talk with king.” Ludo gingerly put Hoggle and Didymus back on their feet, going so far as to dust them gently with a massive forepaw.

“Yes,” Sir Didymus exclaimed, whiskers beginning to quiver in excitement. “Thou must show the king thy true nature, the Lady Sarah we all see, and he will open up to thou in kind.”

Sarah didn’t think it would be that easy. Jareth was a pompous ass. He wore his shirt open nearly to his navel on a daily basis. Irene, who heartily disapproved of teenage boys with their pants hanging down to their knees, would have words to describe the sort of person Jareth was.

Still… The thought of endless conversations about nothing wasn’t pleasant. There was no telling how long this _thing_ between them would last.

And she had to admit, if only to herself, it was _boring_ sitting in silence. He’d been challenging, mocking, and downright scary in the Labyrinth, but never _boring_. Sarah couldn’t help wondering what he was like when he wasn’t trying to steal her baby brother or otherwise make her miserable.

Meeting Sir Didymus’s eyes through her vanity mirror, Sarah raised her chin.

“I’ll try.”

 

* * *

 

Meeting Jareth’s eyes across his breakfast table was a completely different problem.

She’d been systematically eating her pancakes for the better part of five minutes as she attempted to steel her nerves. They were light and fluffy and garnished with some round pink berries she’d never seen before, and she was so nervous she could barely taste them.

Finally, before she could think about it more, she shoved her chair away from the table. The chair legs snagged on the heavy rug and she ended up half stumbling as she tried to stand. By the time she was out of her seat she felt awkward and wanted to go home, but took the two steps necessary to reach Jareth’s side of the table.

She stuck out her hand and forced herself to look him in the eye.

“Hello, my name is Sarah Williams.”

Jareth put down his teacup. He eyes drifted from her hand, up her arm, and finally settled on her face. His expression was hooded, but even Sarah could tell he was sizing her up, assessing her intentions.

Stubbornly, she stood barefoot on his fancy rug and tried not to think about her pajamas, which were pink-and-green-striped with watermelon buttons. That, and she wasn’t sure if it was proper to offer a fairytale king a handshake.

But all thoughts of inappropriately dressed and presented greetings flew from her mind when Jareth, mimicking her posture, stuck his hand out about a foot away from his body.

“I am Jareth, King of the Goblins and ruler of the Labyrinth. I am very… pleased to make your acquaintance, Sarah Williams.”

And Sarah, filled with relief over not being laughed at or snubbed, rolled her eyes and reached forward to grab his hand.

“We’re supposed to _shake_ hands—“ she demonstrated by moving their hands— “not point them at each other.”

“Indeed? Is this an Aboveground greeting?”

“Right,” Sarah suddenly realized that she was still holding Jareth’s hand and tried as subtly as possible to let go. “How do you greet each other here?”

Without hesitating, he turned her hand in his grip and pulled her forwards, tilting his head to brush his lips against the backs of her knuckles.

“I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Sarah Williams.”

Sarah nodded stupidly and pulled her hand away. She could still feel the warmth of his breath against her skin.

“Nice to meet you,” she said.

But part of her wondered if she’d been better off back when they were enemies.

 

* * *

 

Sarah was surprised by the basket of rolls, cold cuts, and sliced cheeses that greeted her the next morning in Jareth’s study. Over the past couple of weeks she’d come to the conclusion that when she woke in his office it was because she’d already missed him having breakfast in his room. Mooching off Jareth was the best breakfast she had during the week when Irene didn’t cook, so Sarah had come to accept Jareth’s study as a sign of cereal for breakfast.

This time there was a plate and a glass of water sitting directly in front of her on Jareth’s massive desk. It seemed like the food was for her.

He met her eyes briefly over the scroll he was unraveling. “Consider it a peace offering.”

Sarah ate to the sound of Jareth’s quill scratching on the heavy parchment. Most days they exchanged stilted pleasantries before Jareth sent her back. She’d never actually seen him work on his paperwork—he usually stopped writing when she arrived. Obviously he didn’t trust her any more than she trusted him and wanted to keep an eye on her.

Frankly, after the events of yesterday morning the silence was a relief. They’d called a cease-fire and he’d kissed her hand. Sarah had resisted the urge to check her skin for a mark and asked politely to be sent home. It wasn’t because she was running away, she’d told herself. But she thought she’d seen laughter in Jareth’s eyes as he’d fulfilled her request.

Now Sarah nibbled her breakfast roll and snuck furtive glances at the Goblin King. He seemed to be ignoring her in favor of his documents. Seizing the unexpected opportunity, Sarah turned to glance at the rest of the room. Jareth had a large study, but she’d have to turn her back on him to really look, something Sarah had never felt comfortable doing before. She chanced another peek at Jareth only to find him watching her, amusement clear in his eyes.

“You aren’t confined to that chair, you know.”

His eyebrows arched in a way that usually meant he was mocking her. Sarah searched his face for malice and found none. Was he… teasing her?

Cautiously, Sarah put her empty plate down and rose from her chair. When nothing happened she glanced at Jareth. He was dipping his quill in an ink pot and didn’t appear to notice. Carefully, she took a few steps away from her chair towards the rest of the room.

When she looked over Jareth was openly staring at her. He appeared to be smiling. Sarah glared reflexively, neither familiar nor comfortable with that expression on Jareth’s face. But he dismissed her with a roll of his eyes and a careless wave, bending his head back over the desk.

Despite her instinctual distrust, Jareth didn’t seem to be baiting her for a trap. All of the tension drained from her shoulders at the anticlimax and, with nothing else to do, she went to explore.

Jareth’s enormous desk took up one end of the room, a large map on the wall behind him. Her wake-up chair was positioned on the other side. The first couple of times she’s woken in his study there had been two chairs, but the other had been moved to a corner of the room next to a small table, both pieces stacked with books. There was an unlit fireplace on one side of the room and a ceiling-high bookcase framed with two windows on the other. Naturally, Sarah gravitated towards the bookshelf.

All of the books were the distinguished kind with looping gold script, but the characters were peculiar and seemed almost fuzzy. Sarah blinked and rubbed her eyes and the words reformed into ordinary English.

The titles were all things like “ _On The Reign Of King Lothgar The Supplicant: Outstanding Foreign Policy Decisions 513 – 672_ ,” “ _An Account Of Clan Violencee As Recorded In All Its Detailes By Fenwell Thee Reeliable_ ,” and “ _Imperial Coinage, A Dialogue On the Practices of Minting And All Relating Matters_.”

Sarah gave up skimming when the foreign names and words started running together in her mind. Maybe these were Jareth’s “work” books, and that was why they all seemed kind of boring. She paused at a long book that had been resting lengthwise across some of the others on one of the shelves.

The first page was a foldout map of the Underground. Pleased, Sarah carried her find to the quartet of comfy looking armchairs on the opposite end of the room. They were grouped around a table that appeared to have another map inlaid on its surface, this one of the Labyrinth.

Sarah could identify the area easily by its mazelike structure, but was puzzled when the neat lines beneath her eyes shifted. Wondering if the table’s strange powers were similar to Jareth’s books, she watched in growing wonder as the map of the Labyrinth continued to change, whole areas rearranging only to vanish in the blink of an eye.

Quickly, she fumbled the book open and compared the table map of the Labyrinth to the smaller Labyrinth on the world map. The table map shifted again, but the map in the book didn’t move. Peering closer, Sarah realized the mapmaker had depicted a standard labyrinth and placed a castle at its center.

Intellectually, she knew that she was in the Castle Beyond the Goblin City at the center of the Labyrinth. But running the fluid, ever-changing corridors of the maze was different than waking up surrounded by the solid stone walls of Jareth’s castle. Curious, Sarah drifted to one of the large windows.

The Goblin City spread out beneath her, early morning sunlight glinting off of the tiled roofs. Figures were visible on the streets, but she was too high to make them out clearly. The city seemed bustling and alive, much more orderly than when she’d seen it last. Beyond the walls of the city the twisting Labyrinth spread to the horizon. Early morning mist hovered in the air and obscured the paths from view. She was too far away to see if they moved or not.

Irresistibly, Sarah’s eyes were drawn to the map behind Jareth’s desk. Did that map change in real time too? It had only been a few weeks since she’d run the Labyrinth and yet it seemed vastly different now compared to the mysterious lonely place she’d encountered. What was it like living in a magical land where everything changed all the time?

“Jareth.”

She didn’t realize she’d spoken until Jareth lifted his head and his pale hair glinted in the morning sunlight.

Fumbling, she tried to put her thoughts into words.

“What is it that you… do here, exactly? As the Goblin King.” She paused and hastily added, “Other than taking babies, I mean.”

Jareth put his quill down and leaned back in his chair.

“What do you know about kings?”

“In a modern-day sense, or just in general?”

He’d didn’t answer and Sarah frowned. It was pretty obvious the Goblin Kingdom wasn’t anything like monarchies in her world. What did she know about kings? She’d learned about this in grade school, but that had been several years ago. Sarah pushed aside her more recent memories of the U.S. Constitution and tried to remember.

“Kings rule for life, usually have lots of money, power, and land, and are served by other nobles and vassals that support them in exchange for fiefdoms or other things.” A troubling thought occurred to her. “You don’t turn wished-away children into goblins to support serfdom, do you?”

Jareth laughed. Sarah stared in surprise. Since when did Jareth _laugh_ , and not in an evil you-have-thirteen-hours-or-else kind of way? This was so weird.

“Sarah, I assure you that I neither turn children into goblins nor force goblins, or any other creatures, into indentured servitude. I realize that my kingdom was somewhat less organized the last time you saw it, but I am not a barbarian.”

Of _course_ he wasn’t a barbarian, Mr. dramatic cloaks and fancy makeup. He lived a magical life in a magical castle surrounded by a magical maze where everything was perfect and wonderful. And he _sang_. As far as Sarah could tell he was practically a Disney princess.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” In her annoyance the suspicious question came out before she could stop it.

One pointed eyebrow rose towards his hairline.

“I thought we had put that affair behind ourselves yesterday,” Jareth said in a slow drawl. His eyes were unreadable but something about his tone of voice made Sarah’s hackles rise.

“What’s done is done. Or is there some matter you would still like to address, Sarah?”

She drew a quick breath, not sure when the air had become so stuffy. Jareth was staring at her with fierce intensity and her palms broke out in sweat.

“I just thought…” It was hard to voice the words. “Aren’t you still mad at me for winning?”

Jareth blinked once and suddenly the pressure in the room was gone and she could breathe again. He sighed and gestured to the pitcher of water from Sarah’s breakfast. It obligingly lifted and tipped itself over the glass Jareth held beneath it. Methodically he took a sip, swallowed, and put the glass down.

“The Labyrinth is a kingdom in the Underground, which is a world entirely apart from your own. Here there are many other kingdoms, but the Labyrinth is a peculiar oddity.

“In addition to my duties as acting monarch of this realm—which do not in any way involve slavery—I am called upon occasionally to answer wishes, specifically the wishes of mortals, for those of this land know better than to invoke my name in casual circumstances.

“As King of the Labyrinth, when a mortal wishes away a child I am bound to receive the babe and offer a choice: a wish, or the opportunity to run the Labyrinth and take back the child.”

“But what happens to the children that stay?”

“They’re adopted.”

Sarah goggled.

“What, really?”

“Yes, really,” Jareth frowned. “It’s difficult for the Fae to have children, and a human lifespan Below is much longer than those Above. Wished-away children are much better treated here than they are in their original homes.”

His words sparked a familiar feeling of guilt inside her, but Sarah brushed it away. Toby was at home where he belonged; she’d fixed that mistake and didn’t intend to repeat it.

“So,” Sarah thought about what she’d learned in the past couple of minutes, “you’re a king, but you also have to take kids when people don’t want them and you’re really old and magical.”

Jareth’s brow creased. “I am not _old_.”

Sarah stared at him, surprised by the aggrieved look on his face. It was the same look Irene had worn the one time Sarah had been stupid enough to tell her she was “too old to understand.”

“Uh, well,” Sarah floundered, not sure why she felt the sudden need to spare Jareth’s feelings. “You don’t _look_ very old, but you said that stuff about people living longer down here.”

There was an awkward pause and Sarah tried not to wince, expecting a sarcastic rebuttal. But amazingly his immaculate highness seemed at a loss for words. After a lengthy silence where the two of them tried to stare everywhere but at each other, Jareth picked up his quill.

“Indeed.” He lowered his quill as if to write and then immediately put it back down.

Sarah simply stared. With his jerky, erratic movements Jareth looked like a startled bird trying to resettle his ruffled feathers. Coughing to hide her small laugh, she looked away.

“I think,” Jareth said as if tasting the words in his mouth, “that I should send you home before you’re late for school.”

And sitting on her bed at home Sarah snorted and laughed, short and sharp at the strangeness of it all.

“What the hell was that?”

Her bedroom deigned not to answer.

 

* * *

 

A few days after their new truce Sarah was munching her way through a strange porridge concoction when Jareth looked up from his ubiquitous paperwork and frowned at her.

“What is it you do at ‘school?’”

“What?” Sarah blinked and swallowed her mostly-chewed mouthful with a gulp.

“You’ve mentioned ‘going to school’ several times in the past; I’m curious about what that activity means Above.”

His eyes narrowed when she stared at him and didn’t reply.

“Are we not allowed to ask questions as part of this agreement?”

“No, I just…” She paused, a little flummoxed.

As much as her time in the Labyrinth had taught her the uselessness of a concept like _fair_ , she’d recognized that calling a truce between them meant that compromise had to come from her too. She just hadn’t thought he’d really be interested in her life in return. Her world seemed so mundane in comparison to his.

“Don’t you have school down here? Teaching? Some form of learning with tutors or something?”

“Of course.” His brows pinched together in that way she’d come to recognize as him disagreeing with her assumptions.

“There are public institutions for teaching literacy as well as basic skills in a range of different subjects, including magic for the pupils with aptitude. Most are apprenticed or employed directly in the work of their choice and need no further instruction beyond that offered in their profession.”

Sarah couldn’t help a little thrill of excitement at his words. Jareth wasn’t the only one who could do magic.

“Those with the means to afford them hire private tutors to advance their studies, which tend towards those necessary to maintain their lands or holdings—diplomacy, elocution, financial skills, and such. Instruction in music and the arts is also popular.”

It all sounded a little archaic to Sarah, but definitely more complicated that she’d ever thought the goblins would need. Jareth obviously read her surprise on her face.

“Now is as good a time as any to disabuse you of your erroneous assumptions. What you saw of my kingdom was only a facet of its true nature. Within the context of the challenge you merely saw what you wanted to see.

“Yes, we have schooling. The majority of my subjects receive basic education, though some of them progress beyond that. But what you’ve said about your Aboveground school seems to imply something different than what we have here.”

He raised an eyebrow in a wordless demand for an answer.

“I mean, I don’t know how school works in other countries,” she warned him hesitantly, “but in America we go to school for a minimum twelve years. It’s required by law.”

“Interesting.” His eyebrows had disappeared into his hairline. “And how is this paid for?”

“Um, taxes. Except for private schools, which you have to pay tuition to attend.”

“So your government requires the populace to pay for and attend a lengthy period of schooling. Does it not cripple the workforce to prevent the citizens from learning job skills until later in life?”

“...No?” A corner of his mouth twitched.

“More school means a better job. If you drop out you might be stuck working at a fast-food restaurant for the rest of your life.”

Jareth mouthed the words “fast-food restaurant” to himself and Sarah winced, suddenly realizing that she might have bitten off more than she could chew.

“That’s a bad job,” she said quickly. “No, um, earning potential.”

“What is it that you learn from school? You in particular, Sarah.”

“Well this year I’ve got world history, English, pre-algebra, drama—” she ignored the way Jareth’s eyebrows went up again— “chemistry, Spanish, and gym.”

He sat back, eyes never leaving her face. He looked, in a word, fascinated, and it made a little shiver work down Sarah’s spine.

“This year?”

“Tenth grade.”

“If you’re in year ten of twelve, then you’ve nearly finished, correct?”

“Well, no. Not if I go to college.”

“College?”

“Yeah, university. It’s, um, more school after you finish your required school. You don’t have to go—it’s not free like public school—but you can’t get some jobs unless you do.”

“Ah, an institute of more advanced learning? A few kingdoms have been experimenting with the idea, particularly for the study of magic.”

“You can study all kinds of things at college. Marine biology, finance, sculpture, dinosaurs.”

“Dinosaurs…?”

He was doing that thing again where he looked at her like a cat eyeing up a nice, fat little bird, head at a peculiar angle. Sarah attempted to smile and not give away how nervous it made her.

“You don’t—didn’t have those?”

 

* * *

 

Over the next few weeks Jareth practically bombarded her with questions, taxing Sarah’s knowledge on all sorts of different subjects. His curiosity had a distinctly kingly air, prompting him to look at things from a different perspective than any adult Sarah had ever met.

He was intrigued at the idea of the PTA: “So parents are allowed some measure of control over the education of their children. They pay taxes to provide the service but don’t feel comfortable leaving administration in the hands of the government?”

Horrified at the thought of unions: “If workers are allowed to ally against their employer, what stops them from halting key industries and bringing the country’s production to a standstill? How is that any different from mob rule?”

He also somehow tricked her into summarizing the entire plot of the _Jurassic Park_ movies, which turned into a lengthy Q &A session about television, popular culture, and the economy: “These… ‘companies’ are allowed to use prostitution to sell their products?”

Sarah found herself struggling to answer his questions satisfactorily.

“They’re paying the money, so they want to know where it’s going. You can’t tell me your subjects are always totally happy with the way _you_ administer things either.”

“They don’t do it to stop working, they do it so they can keep working, but without being taken advantage of. It’s to protect them from having their wages cut or being fired and replaced when they want health insurance. And, um, they don’t usually do that to the government I think? France does that, definitely.”

“‘Sex sells’ is just an expression, Jareth! That’s illegal. They don’t _literally_ …” Sarah covered her burning face with her hands. “Can we go back to talking about different genres of music now?”

In return Sarah bugged him about the different beings living in the Underground: “The dwarves choose their leader? That’s kind of like how electing the President works.”

He looked amused. “Is your ‘president’ required to compete in feats of strength and various military trials for the position?”

“Worse,” Sarah replied thinking of her father and Irene bickering over the presidential debates, “they have to give interviews in front of the entire country on live TV.”

The goblins: “So they’re not all… uh, confused and bumbling?”

“Hardly. Many are not what you’d call intelligent, but the rest are, I suspect, much more similar to people.”

Sarah thought about this.

“Unique individuals who are… different from each other?”

Jareth smirked. “Not at all qualified to pick who should lead them.”

Sarah had no idea what to say to that.

And of course, the most important question of all: “So can anyone do magic?”

“Most denizens of the Underground have the capacity for some type of magic, yes. But few have the aptitude for the most advanced spells.

“Take the goblins, for example.”

With a twist of his hand he was suddenly holding a crystal ball, the first he’d summoned since Sarah had run the Labyrinth. She leaned away reflexively and clenched her fingers tight around the arms of her chair.

“They have no talent for magic and are in fact so distinctly _un_ magical that spells simply glance off their scaly hides.”

He dropped the crystal, causing Sarah to flinch, but it hit the surface of the desk and rolled to a stop without doing anything.

“An obvious advantage over races that conduct their warfare primarily through magical means.”

“But you’re all—” She gestured at him and then did jazz hands because that hadn’t seemed magical enough. “How did you get to be King of the Goblins?”

“Certainly not through a congressional democracy, or whatever it is you have.”

He scrawled something on the parchment in front of him before tapping it with a finger. It obligingly rolled itself up and tied itself with a bit of ribbon before plopping neatly in the gilt tray Sarah had come to think of as Jareth’s “Out” box.

“But if you’re asking if you, specifically, can learn magic, Sarah, I have been thinking on the matter.”

This sounded like excellent news to her, but Jareth refused to say anything more before sending her home, and every time she brought it up again he changed the subject by asking her more questions.

Halfway through a rambling attempt at explaining how J.R.R. Tolkien’s _Lord of the Rings_ series, and by extension his elves, were likely a product of his experience with the World Wars—which required trying to explain what the wars had been about—to an incredulous Jareth, Sarah realized she’d been distracted _again_.

“Stop doing that!”

Jareth immediately assumed an expression of arch confusion, but Sarah was on to him.

“You never told me whether I could learn magic or not.”

“As I recall,” he said smoothly, eyes gone catlike as he looked at her from beneath lowered lashes, “I said I was thinking on the matter.”

“Well-” Sarah swallowed back her words when Jareth only continued watching her like a bug under a microscope. “Please?”

For a moment he didn’t respond, then he sighed and the alien power that had been watching her from behind his eyes receded until he was just Jareth again, once an enemy but now something a little different.

“I don’t believe you’ve really considered the consequences of your actions that day, Sarah.”

In the first week of their reacquaintance Sarah would have gone instantly defensive at his words. But she looked at his face and couldn’t find anything nasty there or in his voice. He wasn’t trying to taunt her, just stating facts.

“What do you mean? I…”

She hesitated before finally voicing something she’d been thinking about ever since Jareth had told her he didn’t know why she kept appearing in the Underground.

“This thing.” Sarah gestured wordlessly between them. “I did this when I chose to run the Labyrinth.”

It took a lot of courage to say, and she couldn’t help folding her hands tightly in her lap afterwards as she waited for Jareth’s judgment. He’d been friendly over the past weeks, and he’d accepted all of her stumbling explanations and answered all of her questions without mocking her. Maybe, she thought for what suddenly seemed like the first time, everything would be alright.

“Your will as strong as mine and your kingdom as great. Those were your words, Sarah.”

Jareth’s face was unreadable, but his voice carried a strange cadence. Sarah didn’t miss that he’d neglected the very last part of what she’d said and couldn’t repress a little shiver.

“Words have power here like nowhere else in the Underground. Even I don’t know exactly what you did.”

“So… it was me then? It’s my fault?”

Jareth blinked in surprise, lips parting without saying anything.

“You said you didn’t know why this was happening,” she hurried to explain, “so it must be because of me.”

“Did you know… I never imagined the little girl who wished her baby brother away to me in a fit of pique would ever assume responsibility the way you just have.

“No,” he held up a hand when Sarah tried to speak, “I believe the assigning of fault was something we put behind ourselves already. What I meant is that your actions that day, the declaration you made, set you as my equal.

“If you have magic, as you very likely might, then it would by necessity be as strong as my own. I have been practicing magic much, much longer than you’ve been alive, and according to the laws of your own land you aren’t even considered an adult yet. So you begin to see my problem. _If_ you have magic I won’t be able to entrust your training to someone else. I will have to teach you myself.”

Sarah had considered some of that already. The Underground, and especially the Labyrinth, was Jareth’s realm. She hadn’t forgotten that he provided the breakfast she ate each morning. She’d already realized that Jareth would be the one arranging any magic lessons, but had hoped that he wouldn’t mind now that they were not-enemies. But maybe she’d only been taking him for granted the way she had her father and Irene.

It had only been a few weeks ago, but Sarah remembered how it had felt to apologize to them and see the expressions on their faces. Saying sorry would probably never get any easier, but the result made it just a little less hard to summon the effort.

“I’m sorry.”

He snorted and Sarah’s head jerked up to find him smiling at her.

“That wasn’t a ‘no.’ Really, Sarah, any more uncharacteristic apologies and I’ll begin to suspect you’ve been replaced by a changeling.”

The warmth in his eyes made it clear that he was teasing her. Sarah, who still wasn’t used to him poking fun at her with no intention to harm, grasped for a reply.

“That actually happens? Changelings?”

“It used to much more frequently than it does now. But in your case, I highly doubt it. Most humans have little ability for magic, but there have always been dreamers like you with belief as strong as any raw talent. Magic is all about intent.”

“So can I use magic if I just will it hard enough?”

“Not exactly. But I suspect what magic you have will manifest itself sooner or later. We’ll revisit the issue when that happens. Now, tell me again about this ‘middleground,’ and the creatures called ‘hob bits’ and how they’re an allegory for the greatest wars in the Aboveground’s history.”

Sarah couldn’t help rolling her eyes.

“It’s _Middle Earth_ , not ‘middleground,’ and it’s _way_ more complicated than that!”

 

* * *

 

Life continued on as it had, if far more pleasant since she and Jareth had agreed to their truce. Sarah went to school, came home to do her homework and help with Toby, fell asleep in her own bed, and woke each morning in the Goblin Kingdom. She and Jareth talked about anything and everything, though the speed of their conversations slowed after the first week spent curiously interrogating each other.

Sometimes when Jareth was particularly busy or Sarah was stressed over a test she’d be having later that day they didn’t speak at all. But those days weren’t tense or full of unspoken angry words anymore. Instead Sarah ate her breakfast to the scratch of Jareth’s quill, morning dawning through the windows on another day in the Labyrinth as they sat in comfortable silence.

Mostly though, they chatted, and Sarah was amazed that Jareth still seemed as interested in her world as she was in his.

“We’re not entirely unaware of the Aboveground here,” he explained when she found out his working knowledge of Shakespeare was probably better than her own.

“The two realms are connected and the Fae with the talent often go walking in the world Above. But the reverse isn’t often true, so our knowledge of your world and culture is limited and usually acquired secondhand.”

“So _Romeo and Juliet_ probably doesn’t mean the same thing to you guys as it does to us.”

Jareth tilted his head birdlike as he studied her.

“Are you certain? You don’t think a tragedy caused by the hasty decision-making of children might be relevant to more than one culture?”

Sarah opened and closed her mouth.

“I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

Instead of pushing the point that she might have personal reasons to understand the main characters’ mistakes, Jareth let it go.

“So I’m to understand that your ‘English’ classes aren’t just about attaining fluency in your own language, but studying past works of literary merit as well?”

“Yeah.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“You seem doubtful.”

“All of those ‘past works of literary merit’ are picked by the teacher, and they’re always really depressing and everybody dies.”

“Better to experience suffering through the pages of a book than to be the cause or victim of it in real life.”

A lot of her conversations with Jareth were like that. He’d say something and twist her head the entire way around until she was looking at things from a completely different perspective. It wasn’t hard to understand why he was the King of the Goblins after that. The Labyrinth had done a similar thing to her thinking process.

Thankfully not every morning with Jareth was a profound life-changing experience, otherwise her head might have exploded before long.

One day Sarah woke up to find him slumped over his desk in the same exact position she assumed when her history homework was kicking her butt. Sarah stared. She’d never seen Jareth look so… sloppy.

“Jareth?”

He didn’t respond, but his shoulders moved with his breathing so she knew he wasn’t dead. Sarah ate her breakfast and watched him for several minutes. Even his normally flyaway hair seemed limp.

“You ok?”

No reply.

“If you don’t wake up I’m going to…” Sarah paused to think up an appropriate threat. “I’m going to go to the Bog of Eternal Stench with an empty glass and then I’m going to dump it on your head.”

Jareth stirred slightly and mumbled something into his desk.

“What?”

“I _said_ ,” he grumbled irritably, raising his head so she could hear him, “that I’m _not_ in the mood today.”

“What’s wrong?”

With a huff, Jareth sat up and grabbed the piece of parchment he’d been face-planted into, crumpling it in a ball and throwing it over her head. A fire rose in the hearth and incinerated the ball before puffing out with a whiff of burnt paper.

Sarah looked from the fireplace to Jareth and took a large bite of her food to keep from saying anything.

“I’m organizing a guest list.”

Sarah took another bite to stifle her words. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if he was planning a Sulky Sovereign Convention, not sure it was a good idea to say that. Jareth had teased her a few times, but Sarah didn’t know if she could do the same in return.

It was true they weren’t exactly enemies anymore—frenemies, maybe?—but Jareth was still a billion years older than her and a king too. She hadn’t forgotten the commanding way he’d said “Don’t defy me, Sarah!” or that he’d spoken in the same tone the first time she’d woken up in his study.

Jareth laid out a fresh sheet of parchment and picked up his quill, frowning down at the blank sheet with a thunderous expression.

“It must be some party,” Sarah finally ventured.

“This will be the third time I’ve hosted the infernal thing and each time it’s been a royal pain in my—”

He stopped abruptly and looked at Sarah with narrowed eyes.

“I’m fifteen, Jareth, not a baby. I can tell when someone’s about to swear.”

Jareth raised an eyebrow but didn’t finish his sentence.

“What’s so bad about this party that you’re this frustrated?”

“This is the biggest and only event I regularly host in the Goblin Kingdom and I can’t afford to insult any of the Underground’s rulers or dignitaries by inviting the wrong third cousin or rooming the Duchess of Dam Mari next to the Viscount of Byrknes.”

At her confused look he elaborated.

“That happened last time and the two still aren’t talking. It’s been nearly five hundred years.”

Sarah gaped.

“F-Five hundred years? But that’s…!”

She was going to say something about that being longer than the United States had even been a country, but Jareth rolled his eyes before she could speak.

“Childish. Yes, I know. Even the worst of my subjects are more mature than some of the Fae.”

“Why do they have to stay here?” Sarah was reeling internally. “Can’t they just-”

She closed her hands and then opened her fingers wide in a wordless “poof” gesture.

“If only,” Jareth said dryly. “No, not all Fae are as magically gifted as I am, not counting the other races who will be in attendance. In addition, it’s a week-long event with various diplomatic meetings, so it makes more sense for them all to stay here, more’s the pity.”

“So this is, what, the Underground version of a UN meeting?”

His eyes went focused the way they did when she said something he wanted to know more about, and Sarah quickly spoke up before he could derail the conversation into another demonstration of how little Sarah actually knew about her world.

“That’s a big meeting where all the countries get together to discuss world issues, like poverty and who’s going to war with who.”

“Yes, this is similar, but the event is meant to mark the anniversary of the truce between the Fae. The air of celebration is supposed to ease the negotiation of difficult issues, but it’s really just an excuse to take advantage of my hospitality and make my _life_ difficult.”

He stabbed his quill into the parchment in emphasis with a snarl, acting more like an annoyed teenager than a regal king. Sarah could relate. She felt the same way when Irene’s awful sister and her step-cousins came to visit once a year.

“It’s not for another six years, but nothing can be done until the guest list is finalized. That’s hardly enough time for most of them to plan their wardrobes—you wouldn’t believe the letters I’ve been getting.” He rolled his eyes and wiggled his quill to make the hole bigger.

“To be honest, I’ve been putting it off. I should have done this two years ago.”

Sarah gaped in shock.

“Jareth, you’ve been _procrastinating?_ ”

Unsurprisingly, he’d been unsympathetic the times Sarah complained about doing her homework. She’d found the comparison between their levels of experience biased considering the reams of stuff he did every morning and how long he’d probably been a king. But she’d never procrastinated anything for _two years_. That was an amazing level of slacker-tude totally uncharacteristic of what she knew about Jareth.

“Talk to me after the Prince of Loulan has an allergic reaction at your opening gala because he was seated too close to the Countess of Brescia, who likes eel more than whomever her new wife is.” He didn’t meet her eyes as he spoke.

“Maybe you should _let_ them insult each other so they’ll leave early.”

Jareth laughed and stopped defacing his parchment.

“ _Very_ good, Sarah. That’s positively wicked.”

She shrugged, pleased and emboldened by his reaction.

“Not the really important ones, just the minor ones or the ones you dislike.”

“I could eliminate most of the Underground by that last criteria.”

He picked up his quill and started writing with a ominous smirk, which was a lot less intimidating when it wasn’t directed at her.

 

* * *

 

Slowly, without knowing where the time went, days turned into weeks, weeks into months. Before she knew it midterms had passed, then Thanksgiving, and finally Christmas, another semester of high school over and done with.

Jareth greeted each milestone with interest. He quizzed her on her schoolwork with an intensity that made her sorry he couldn’t see the material to help her study, was indulgently amused at the notion of a “holiday of gratitude celebrated by over-indulgence”—his words, not hers—and appeared honestly touched when she sang him a few of her favorite Christmas carols because it seemed mean to not give him anything when she’d gotten presents for Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didymus.

The Fae had their own traditions too.

While Sarah waited by the front door for the trick-or-treaters, not in the mood for dressing up after her adventure in the Labyrinth, Jareth made appearances at five different Samhain balls. The next morning they swapped costume disaster stories, though his tales of social faux pas definitely trumped hers about bratty kids.

The morning of the first day of the year she woke up in Jareth’s bedroom to a blazing fire and the fanciest breakfast she’d ever seen. There were pickled eggs, some kind of salted fish, what she _thought_ was wild boar though with the Underground who knew, a salad of iridescent winter greens, pudding, three different cakes, and something fizzy and pale blue that _smelled_ bubbly she probably wasn’t old enough to drink.

“Leftovers from last night,” Jareth said.

He cleared his throat, nervous in a way she’d never seen before, and picked up his goblet.

“It is customary Below to welcome the new year with blessings and well-wishes for our acquaintances. I hope the coming year brings you academic success and a satisfying conclusion to your soft-more year.”

Mimicking him, Sarah raised her goblet. He’d clearly given his declaration some thought and she felt like she was taking a pop quiz trying to come up with something nice to say in return.

“I, um, I hope nothing goes wrong with the guest list for your big anniversary party, and that people stop spamming you about it.”

That had to be good enough because he cracked a small smile and tapped his goblet against hers. The blue liquid tasted way better than the sparkling grape juice she’d had last night.

Jareth was in loose, plain clothing, missing the pendant he always wore, and Sarah wondered if the casual look meant he was on vacation too. Did kings get vacations, or was he saving the paperwork for after she was gone? She realized he’d made the effort to share this with her, and tried to drown the confusing warmth in her chest with the rest of the blue stuff, coughing when the fizz caught in her throat.

Jareth refilled her goblet and didn’t say anything, his smile gone mysterious behind half-lidded eyes.

“So, do your Goblin King duties include giving a State of the Kingdom speech?”

The smile vanished into a calculating expression.

“You’re making a reference to something from your government. Wait, let me guess. Your ‘president’ must periodically update the citizenry on the progress of his work to appease them on the use of their tax money and so prevent revolt.”

“It’s to appease Congress so they’ll help him pass laws.”

“Ah, yes, ‘Congress,’ your governing body of elected oligarchs.”

Sarah glared at him. His constant skepticism over the many ironies of the United States Government was annoying coming from somebody who made people _smell bad forever_ as a punishment.

“I take it back— I hope everybody wants to know the color scheme of your party so they can coordinate their outfits, and tells you you can’t use camellias because it clashes with their skin tone.”

“Then I hope you receive grades no higher than a ‘c-plus’ and have to repeat gymnastics.”

His eyes sparkled with amusement when she sputtered in outrage.

“You can’t fail _gym!_ ”

“I believe you can achieve anything you set your mind to, Sarah.” But he laughed as he said it.

Sarah was glad she was still on Winter Break because whatever had been in her goblet made her feel like she was floating for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

The first month back from Christmas vacation was always an awful ride on the Struggle Bus as they started learning new material based on what she’d forgotten over the break. Sarah didn’t say anything about it to Jareth, embarrassed to complain after he’d casually dropped that he was well over a millennia old. That he could do staggeringly complicated equations in his head also didn’t make her eager to confess her problems with stoichiometry.

Sarah made it through most of the month before her late nights caught up with her, waking one morning to a sudden weight hitting her foot and a raspy flutter close to her face. She shrieked and nearly upended her chair, cautiously opening her eyes when she stayed vertical to find Jareth peering down at her in curiosity. He bent to pick something up and showed it to her.

It was her world history textbook, the one she’d fallen asleep on last night, a corner now badly dented from its fall. Sarah rubbed the grit from her eyes and stared at it, not sure if she was hallucinating.

“You have a stowaway.” He retrieved the blank sheets of paper that were supposed to be an annotated chapter outline. “Several stowaways.”

Her breakfast was shoved aside to make room for the new arrivals. Jareth pushed the button at the end of the ballpoint pen, arched his eyebrows into his bangs at the _click_ , and pushed it again.

“Oh my god, stop!”

Sarah snatched it away before he could start clicking in tune to whatever the Underground equivalent of “Jingle Bells” was. There was no way she could dream up Jareth playing with a pen like a hyperactive child. Which meant this was real. Had she done this by wishing so many times that Jareth could see her homework?

“Did I… bring this with me? _How?_ ”

Jareth was peering at the color-coded timelines at the beginning of the book. She was too stunned to protest when he took the pen from her limp fingers. Was this a fluke or could she do it again? How did it work? What else could she bring with her? While she was contemplating the wisdom of introducing Jareth to popular music via portable CD player, he touched the pen tip to one gloved finger and hummed in interest at the smear of ink it left behind.

“It would appear we need to revisit the issue of magic lessons. May I borrow this?”


End file.
